Caramel2 boards and fc-host-tools-r14

[Das Signal]

Hi Mychaela,

This is excellent news! Congratulations of the successful production of
this new board :-) Do you think you could perhaps post a couple pictures
of the board in action (such as with the LCD and keypad connected)?

On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 09:37:29PM -0800, Mychaela Falconia wrote:
> Hello FreeCalypso community,
> 
> I got a new release of FC host tools:
> 
> ftp://ftp.freecalypso.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/fc-host-tools-r14.tar.bz2
> ftp://ftp.freecalypso.org/pub/GSM/FreeCalypso/fc-host-tools-latest.tar.bz2
> 
> (the latter URL is a symlink that has been updated to point to the former)
> 
> This new version of FC host tools will need to be used by anyone who
> buys a Caramel2+DUART28 kit and wishes to use the boot control feature,
> or anyone who wishes to closely follow my work, but otherwise contains
> nothing of real interest to those who would rather wear an end user
> hat.
> 
> In other news, our Caramel2 boards are now fully assembled:
> 
> https://www.freecalypso.org/members/falcon/Caramel2/c2-fully-assembled.jpeg
> 
> 18 of these boards went into the firmware programming and production
> test process, and 17 came out good (passed all tests) - so fortunately
> we are free from major yield problems, and the cost can remain low as
> promised earlier.
> 
> My asking price for one Caramel2 development kit is $220 USD, same as
> projected earlier, and this kit consists of:
> 
> * Caramel2 board
> * Power supply brick (universal AC to 3.6 VDC)
> * DUART28 adapter
> * Ribbon cable connecting Caramel2 and DUART28 boards
> * SPK WTH43006 antenna
> 
> The $220 price for the above kit is certainly lower than FCDEV3B cost:
> for comparison, my regular asking price for current FCDEV3B V2 is $500,
> although I still have 3 FCDEV3B V1 boards on clearance for $300, below
> my estimated cost of production.  The more expensive FCDEV3B does have
> a few advantages over the cheaper Caramel2:
> 
> * FCDEV3B offers JTAG, but on iWOW TR-800 modules it is not brought
> out at all;
> 
> * FCDEV3B features a flash+RAM chip with 16 MiB of flash and 8 MiB of
> XRAM, whereas TR-800 has a smaller chip with only 8 MiB of flash and
> 2 MiB of XRAM;
> 
> * Analog audio circuits came out better on FCDEV3B (cleaner audio,
> less noise) than on Caramel2.
> 
> But Caramel2 has a few other features which FCDEV3B lacks:
> 
> * The RFFE inside the TR-800 aka Tango module is fully quadband, as
> opposed to having to decide whether to give up the 900 MHz band or the
> 850 MHz band;
> 
> * Many more Calypso signals are brought out, allowing the possibility
> of connecting a 16-bit parallel LCD to Calypso memory bus and a 5x5
> keypad like on a classic handset, or other peripherals - it is the
> 56-pin expansion interface on Caramel2 boards.
> 
> Thus a truly dedicated FreeCalypso tinkerer needs both FCDEV3B and
> Caramel2 boards. :-)
> 
> Hasta la Victoria, Siempre,
> Mychaela aka The Mother
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